This invention relates to safety closures for use on containers for the purpose of preventing unauthorized access to their contents. More specifically the present invention relates to safety closures which may be used in conjunction with containers of any shape whatever provided the containers have a rim or flange around the outer peripheries of their mouths.
Various types of locking mechanisms are known for retaining the caps on containers intended to hold medicines, cleaning solvents and like toxic substances. The primary objective of such locking mechanisms is to foil the attempts by young children to remove the caps from the containers. To open such locking mechanisms requires a manual dexterity or strength not usually possessed by young children or requires reading and following of written instructions. Typical of such locking mechanisms is that described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,862,699 to Wetzell. Wetzell describes a closure for a bottle which, to open, requires that it be first depressed, secondly squeezed radially inwardly and thirdly rotated with respect to the bottle to a point at which ridges formed in the closure may be moved into conforming depressions formed in the neck of the bottle. These steps require not only strength and manual dexterity but the ability to follow written instructions. A yound child would be unable to open such a closure.
A shortcoming of known locking mechanisms such as that described in Wetzell is that they can only be used in conjunction with specially constructed containers. The containers must usually, for example, be provided with specially constructed ribs or grooves adjacent their mouths for cooperation with conforming grooves or ribs of the locking mechanisms. Moreover, the mouths of the containers must be cylindrical since the known locking mechanisms must usually be rotated in order to remove them from the containers.
Another shortcoming of many known locking mechanisms is that they are structurally complex. Not only are the mechanisms expensive of construction but they are complicated of assembly.